BEST COMPANY TO WORK FOR AWARD
SPONSORED VAIL WILLIAMS BY
Experts in providing payment, invoice and document automation solutions to corporations, financial institutions and banks around the world, Bottomline Technologies walked away with the title of Best Company to Work For, the award sponsored by commercial property specialist Vail Williams.
With its European headquarters in the centre of Reading, the company’s products and services range from tactical, desktop solutions through to enterprise-wide offerings. It is now the market leader in BACS solutions and services, as well as areas including secure cheque production, and inbound and outbound document processing.
The company puts both employees and customers at the heart of its success, 97% of customers say they would recommend Bottomline to another organisation.
Staff retention is extremely high, with 91% of its 270 staff having been with the company for more than a year and 50% for over five years. The company has developed its C1 programme as a framework for its customer care culture, focusing on how the whole organisation can deliver a complete customer experience in order to improve and grow the business.
Candace Pridgeon, head of customer service, said: “The whole ethos of C1 is around committing to the customer. If you haven’t got an engaged and motivated team of people, then you will never get the customer end right.
“You have to get the most talented people you can, develop their skills and make sure their
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personal success is linked with their business success; you have to make it personal for them and ensure they feel valued. We have a lot of talented, creative and really committed people and we make it a fun place to be.
“We are very conscious that we have the futures of our staff and their families, their wellbeing and their security in our hands and that is important to us. What we do doesn’t have to cost a fortune, it’s about making people feel valued, noticing peoples’ likes and dislikes and giving them a little thank you. We are unashamedly growth focused and we want to do well for the staff.”
A recent initiative called ‘Why Bottomline’, asked every employee to submit one thought per week about why customers chose Bottomline and what makes the business special. In a 10-week period there were more than 10,500 reasons, with staff praising everything from the free daily fruit and ‘Pizza Fridays’, through to support for a culture of learning.
Ian Rudland, chief executive of Vail Williams, presented Pridgeon with the trophy (main picture), and said afterwards: “The judges chose Bottomline Technologies because of their clear commitment to creating an excellent working environment. They invest heavily in ensuring all of their people are developed, are well rewarded and most importantly, enjoy their working day.
“One example of this is their Employee of the Quarter nominated by other employees. Managers are encouraged to practice ‘spontaneous acts of kindness’ which can
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – DECEMBER 11/JANUARY 12
include duvet days or surprise goody bags. They provide free fruit every day, pizza on Fridays and on the first Monday of the month breakfast is supplied for ALL staff.
“With a network of seven offices across the UK, internal communication is an essential ingredient in ensuring a positive working environment within the company and Bottomline TV focuses on providing ‘knowledge sharing’. This was seen by the judges as a particularly positive and innovative way of overcoming the communication challenges associated with a multi-office network.”
Rudland also praised the “exceedingly high” standard of all the entries which had, he said, made it incredibly difficult to choose the shortlist.
In second place was Integralis, specialists in providing IT security and information risk management solutions. The award was presented to HR manager Emma Rowe (pictured top right), while in third place was recruitment company Austin Fraser, which focuses on the ICT, engineering and renewable energy market sectors. Peter Hart, joint managing director collected the award (bottom right).
Highly commended were last year’s winner GCS Recruitment, together with Nominet and The
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